The Impact of the 2008 Crisis on UK Prices: What We Can Learn from the CPI Microdata1

This paper takes the locally collected price quotes used to construct the CPI index in the UK for the period 1996–2013 and explores the impact of the Great Recession (2008‐9) on the pricing behaviour of firms. We develop a time series framework which captures the link between macroeconomic variables and the behaviour of prices in terms of the frequency of price change, the dispersion of price levels and the size, dispersion and kurtosis of price‐growth. We find strong evidence for inflation having an effect, but not output. The change in the behaviour of prices during the Great Recession is largely explained by the changes in inflation and VAT. Nevertheless, the magnitude of the inflation effect is sufficiently small that it need not influence monetary policy.     

Healthcare resource utilization by patients with treatment-refractory myasthenia gravis in England

Aims: To examine healthcare resource utilization associated with refractory myasthenia gravis (MG) in England.

Materials and methods: This was a retrospective cohort study of linked data from the Clinical Practice Research Datalink and the Hospital Episode Statistics database collected between 1997 and 2016. Included patients were ≥18?years of age at the index MG diagnosis. Patients with refractory MG were identified using an algorithm based on treatments received. Healthcare resource utilization since the index date was compared between refractory and non-refractory cohorts.

Results: The study included 1149 patients with MG, of whom 66 (5.7%) were refractory. Sex and age at diagnosis did not significantly differ between the refractory and non-refractory cohorts. Rates of healthcare resource utilization per person-year were significantly higher (p?p?Limitations: The algorithm for identifying refractory patients did not include clinical criteria. Also, treatments administered in hospitals or by specialists were not available in the databases.

Conclusions: Patients in England with refractory MG more often visit healthcare providers, are hospitalized and visit an emergency room than patients with non-refractory MG.     

Biofuels technology development in Southern Africa

ABSTRACT

The benefits of biofuels depend on the feedstock, conversion pathway and local context. This paper assesses biofuels technology readiness and developments to provide foresight to biofuels development in Southern Africa. Efficient conversion pathways, coupled with biomass from waste or high-yielding energy crops, will reduce both the costs of biofuels production, and the environmental impacts. Compared to petroleum fuels, the current commercial biofuels (ethanol, biogas and biodiesel) typically offer carbon emission reductions of 30–50% but are marginally more expensive. The extent of biofuels market penetration will therefore be influenced by mandates (blending targets) and subsidies (green premium). Advanced biofuels promise greater efficiencies and carbon emission reductions at reduced cost but will require further research and development to reach commercialisation. If developed appropriately, biofuels can reduce carbon emissions and improve energy security, while enabling sustainable agriculture and improved natural resources management.     

Research engagement,impact and sustainable tourism

In this editorial, we reflect on how the Journal of Sustainable Tourism can contribute towards sustainable tourism researchers achieving more impact with their research. We propose some changes that can be tested in, and introduced gradually and collaboratively with, the community of the editorial board and authors. To support impactful mind sets, we will promote research that reflects diverse academic communities. To promote impactful research topics, we will encourage authors to frame their submitted articles against the Sustainable Development Goals, while research that is time sensitive will be fast tracked so it can contribute to current debates. To promote impactful methodologies, we shall favour articles that use mixed methods and action research, and those that conduct longitudinal, experimental, and evaluative research. To promote impactful partnerships, we will favour multidisciplinary approaches and research that has been co-created with stakeholders. To promote impactful communication and dissemination, we will continue to build an online community on social media for sustainable tourism researchers, we will promote articles in social media to raise their visibility, and we will provide free access to those articles that are deemed to have the greatest potential to impact positively on society.     

Patents and invention in Jamaica and the British Atlantic before 1857 †

Before 1852 the English patent system operated at both a domestic and a global level, allowing inventors to extend its operation beyond England to the colonies, where it interacted in territories such as Jamaica with a colonial system of patents and grants. It therefore provides one of the few examples of a workable global patent system, and an important case study of the structures that supported the development and circulation of technology within the British Atlantic during the early stages of the industrial revolution. Providing a framework of ‘tiered’ rather than ‘parallel’ powers and jurisdictions, the imperial patent system was a flexible instrument that inventors could use strategically to promote transnational technological innovation, in which people, ideas, and skills moved back and forth between Britain and colonies such as Jamaica. Patenting, which was concentrated in wealthy plantation colonies that sought greater productivity, was therefore a key part of the economic development of empire.     

What drives support for self-driving car technology in the United States?

Abstract

Recent advances in automotive technology have made fully automated self-driving cars technologically feasible. Despite offering many benefits such as increased safety, improved fuel efficiency, and greater disability access, public support for self-driving cars remains low. While previous studies find that demographic factors such as age and sex influence self-driving car support, limited research has examined variables that are well known to predict public attitudes toward emerging technology. Using self-report data from a quota sample of American adults (N?=?1008), we find that age and sex are not significantly associated with support for self-driving car policies when controlling for these other variables. Instead, significant predictors of support included trust in automotive institutions and regulatory bodies, recognition of self-driving car benefits, positive affect toward self-driving cars, and a greater perception that human-driven cars are riskier than self-driving cars. Importantly, we also find that individualism is negatively associated with support. That is, people who value personal autonomy and limited government regulation may perceive policies encouraging self-driving car use as threatening to their worldviews. Altogether, our results suggest strategies for encouraging greater public support of self-driving vehicles while also forecasting potential barriers as this technology emerges as a fixture in transportation policy.     

How much does tax erode fund excess returns?

We model the tax drag from active fund management based on reported monthly holdings of active equity funds. Tax drag erodes 65 percent of the 0.74 percent excess return in Broad Market funds, but only 21 percent of the 1.80 percent excess return in Small-Cap funds for Australian superannuation (pension) fund investors. Tax drag varies with investment style; market state, which is most detrimental during bull markets; and fund turnover. For high-income individual investors, tax drag is exacerbated to the extent that active management only generates meaningful after-tax excess return for Small-Cap funds of certain styles.     

Cents of self: How and when self-signals influence consumer value derived from choices of green products

Consumers choosing between green and conventional products often believe such choices imply trade-off decisions, such that green products provide morally-related advantages but embody price or quality-related disadvantages compared to standard products. We study the consequences of such trade-offs for consumer value in the context of privately consumed green products. To develop our theoretical model, we draw from the perspective of self-signaling – consumers' act of signaling information about their internal qualities to their own self through choice. We explore how and when self-signals from such trade-off decisions influence consumer value gained from comparative choices of green versus standard products. Six studies were conducted, using divergent measures of the dependent variable, multiple product categories, and measured as well as manipulated self-concept clarity (SCC). We find a joint effect of self-signals from comparative choices and self-concept clarity on consumer value, such that positive self-signals lead to incrementally higher satisfaction and willingness to pay for consumers with low SCC but not significantly so for those with high SCC. Results show that this joint effect may occur for consumers with low SCC because they gain incremental value from perceived self-concept alignment – a state that is construed from the perception that a self-signal is aligned with the consumer's self-concept. This study contributes to marketing research by proposing and testing a novel mechanism that can underlie self-signaling.     

Incorporation and Company Formation in Australasia, 1790–1860

Nearly 260 companies were founded in and for the Australasian colonies between 1790 and 1860. A quantitative survey suggests that the patterns of incorporation mainly reflected ‘functionalist’ economic factors rather than ‘autonomous’ legal conditions, though the changing nature of company law did influence the various forms that incorporation took. In some sectors, outside factors and even historical accidents also pushed patterns of incorporation along distinct lines. The result was a tradition of adapting legal powers of incorporation to local needs which persisted beyond the introduction of modern company acts to the region in the 1860s and therefore shaped the subsequent evolution of the company in Australia and New Zealand.